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MARSHALL, Mich., Dec. 2, 2002.—One in 10 shareholder letters in corporate annual reports worldwide runs longer than five pages.
That's the finding of annual report watcher Sid Cato, revealed in his monthly Newsletter on Annual Reports, Issue No. 232 (every month since September 1983). Cato said "the record shows" that "one in 10 corporate chieftains was unable (in 2001 annuals) to speak his or her piece and get off stage." That's up a bit from 9% of verbose CEOs a year earlier, 8.8% and 8.7%, respectively, among 1999 and 1998 reports. Cato said it "wasn't just the turkeys that did poorly. Among the long-talkers," he said, were "two—Sonoco Products and Wells Fargo—whose reports were among the world's best despite excessive length of their letter to shareholders." Concluding two decades of monitoring the world's annual reports—key corporate communiqué, according to Cato—he said 10 reports for 2001 vied for worst written, including a Bahrain report's missive. He said it warranted "none of 10 points for writing." Average length of letters, with results-distortions removed, is 3.2 pages. |